Comments on: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence

By: Crazyfinger

Crazyfinger — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:43:32 +0000

Not sure if this post still has any attention, but just read this over at the Harvard Magazine and wanted to share the link. Regards, Crazyfinger

By: Black Looks

Black Looks — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:21:25 +0000

[...] Ultra Violet links to a report which considers why there is a 300% rise in violence against women in Kerala, India, a state which also has the highest literacy levels in the country. So here, factors like education and international exposure are debilitating rather than liberating in any way. This is something that’s been bothering me for a while, ever since Gita Aravamudan, author of Disappearing Daughters, pointed out that female foeticide is also more prevalent in richer, better-educated homes. I grew up on a staple diet of cliches regarding the world and social change and one of them had to do with education being the panacea for all ills. When will men stop beating up women? When will people not fight on religious grounds? When will caste be abolished? When everybody is educated. Were others also similarly reassured or was I the only one conned in this manner? [...]

By: Links «

Links « — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:33:20 +0000

[...] UltraViolet – a fantastic community of Indian feminists, who don’t write as much as I wish they would. I [...]

By: Apurva

Apurva — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:07:29 +0000

@Anindita: I am not sure if you missed it – The Onion is a satirical news site. Read their other stories.
I hope you do realise why I posted it here.

By: Anindita Sengupta

Anindita Sengupta — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:28:16 +0000

Thanks for the link, Apurva. Have used it in Hot Links. I have to admit though that I find this ironic, especially because Buck keeps saying things like “the big boys” and his “man-to-man” and makes the feminist movement upto now sound like the weak, namby-pamby kinda thing that “only women are capable of.”

By: Apurva

Apurva — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:12:37 +0000

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/man_finally_put_in_charge_of

By: Anindita Sengupta

Anindita Sengupta — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:23:05 +0000

And this is why we get overwhelmed by the basics: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/nov/28women.htm

Read the comments, especially the ones on the second page. This is what common perceptions in our country are like. As soon as you try to point out facts to people, they jump up and claim you are dissing the country. Immense fatigue comes.

By: Falstaff

Falstaff — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:31:08 +0000

Aditya: Agree with all that. There’s nothing wrong with trying to create awareness – on the contrary, I’m all for it. All I’m saying is that if you want to change attitudes you need to have a clear, distinctive message that people who aren’t already brought into your cause can relate to / think about. And there are more effective ways of doing that than putting up a six bullet point list that no one’s going to remember (quick! without looking at the list above – how many of their six points can you recall?), let alone engage with. If the CGWL folks really want to create awareness they should have a site that:

a) Puts key facts about the extent and nature of the problem on the home page, or one click away from it.

b) Provide clear direction on how individuals / NGOs can participate in their campaign

c) Explain what their campaign is actually doing, if anything, rather than what it, in abstract, wants to do (how is local work around violence against women – point 2 of the laundry list – to be strengthened? I’m sure that information is in there, somewhere four clicks away – but it should be front and center)

They also need to have goals that measurable and time-bound. How can we tell if the campaign succeeds? Is the fact that we’re trying to do something about the problem enough? Maybe, for some people. Personally, I care about results, not intentions. And it saddens me to see so much genuine energy being channeled into an effort that, because it’s ill-conceived, will have little or no effect.

Finally, they also need to have a clear top-line message (ideally one / two sentences) that summarizes what they’re trying to do – more specific than ‘we’re trying to stop violence against women’ and shorter than six lazy bullet points.

All of this is communication / management 101. So if an organization doesn’t even get that right then it’s hard to believe that they’ve looked at ‘as many solutions as possible’.

As for “what’s wrong with doing the basics?”. Who said there was anything wrong with it? I certainly never did. All I’m saying is that if a movement is to grow and develop it needs debate, needs innovation, needs fresh perspective. Otherwise it stagnates. So we need to balance the ‘basics’ with ‘new thinking’ – it shouldn’t be just one or the other. Why is that so hard to understand?

By: Aditya

Aditya — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:40:40 +0000

falstaff: The problem with finding ‘better solutions’ is that sometimes, there aren’t any better solutions, or at least not ones which are feasible. While there maybe a few gender activists who don’t really do very much, most of them are people (women AND men), who do work very hard at trying to improve the situation by looking at as many ’solutions’ as possible.

However, the problem in a country like India is largely to do with how women are viewed; it is still believed that women are ‘owned’ by men or are just available for sex and to look after the home and kids. Girls are useless and it’s better to kill them off. And it’s not just poor farmers in Bihar – read some comments to the sexual harassment posts on this site.

It’s these kinds of attitudes that we should try to change. And the basic method of change is information dissemination. The media (and blogs) should try to make people aware that their attitudes are just plain wrong. The more people write about it, talk about it, read about it and watch it on tv, the better the situation will get.

What’s wrong with doing the basics? It’s as important as trying something new.

By: Apurva

Apurva — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:19:26 +0000

@falstaff:
clarity? what does the number of points (and six that too) have to do with clarity?
It is media responsibility that is important. What seems to work to get the media talking is not always what is the best approach. Besides, all media is not bad. But when it comes to reporting issues regarding women, they all seem to suck big time. Violence against women is not a unknown issue that you need to publicise with PR strategies. It is what a decent media would give attention to. When the issue is a really big problem in this society and is quite well accepted that it affects a lot of women, the onus is on the media to report responsibly (and please no more of your _speculative_ questions on how the increase could just be an increase in reporting which actually begs other spculative questions as to why it got higher and whether it is because the feminists are doing things right).
Besides I have yet to see you come up with some strategies other than making ridiculous remarks about the number of bullet points and a supposedly badly designed website being responsible for the media apathy on the issue.

And dude, decide whether you are criticising or not criticising. Don’t be so quasi.

frankly I do not care what _you_ think “the feminists” should be doing and how they go about doing it. The day the feminist movement becomes a centralised machine with a cotorie of strategists and a team of PR experts backed by psychologists would be the day it loses meaning.

Gah! why do I always write these when I am half asleep..